A business can take years to build, require large amounts of capital and depend on physical premises, workers and supplies. Technology has changed that equation.
With a computer, an internet connection and an idea, an entrepreneur can build a digital product that potentially reaches people in countries they may never have visited.
That is one of the reasons Ugandan entrepreneur Nyanzi Martin Luther believes technology has become such a powerful source of wealth.
Nyanzi argues that the difference begins with how a technology business is planned.
“When you start an application, you must have a goal. With that goal, you must plan the audience and the content,” he said.
An application, in his view, should be designed around a particular need and a particular group of users. If the product works, those users can bring others, allowing the platform to grow far beyond its original market.
This is what Nyanzi describes as the advantage of investing in technology.
A shop has to keep buying stock. A restaurant has to keep buying food. A manufacturer has to keep producing goods.
A software company faces a different challenge. Once its product has been created, the same service can be distributed to a much larger audience, although maintaining and expanding it still requires continuous investment.
“You invest once and you get much,” Nyanzi said.
The world’s largest technology platforms have demonstrated the possibilities of that model. Services such as WhatsApp and TikTok have grown into products used across countries and continents.
Their users are not necessarily paying directly for every interaction. Revenue can come from advertising, subscriptions, transactions and other services built around the platforms.
For Nyanzi, this is where the technology business becomes particularly interesting: one product can serve an enormous number of people.
The opportunity in Africa
The same opportunity exists for African entrepreneurs, although the path is not always straightforward.
Many developers depend on international services to build and operate their applications. They may need cloud hosting, APIs, software licences, advertising tools and other services that require international payments.
Nyanzi says this can expose a less-discussed weakness in Africa’s digital economy.
Mobile money has become an important part of everyday transactions in many African countries, but some international technology services require bank cards or other payment methods.
For a developer who cannot easily access those services, even a promising application can face practical limitations.
Nyanzi believes digital education should therefore include more than social media.
Young entrepreneurs need to understand how digital businesses work behind the screen: how applications connect to other services, how international payments are made and how a product can be marketed to people outside its home country.
AI changes the picture again.
Then there is artificial intelligence.
AI is no longer confined to laboratories or technology companies. It has found its way into classrooms, offices, newsrooms, programming environments, and creative work.
People are using AI to write, translate, analyse information, generate images and produce videos. Developers are using it to help create software. Businesses are experimenting with automated customer support and other applications.
Nyanzi sees the growth of AI as another example of the scalability of technology.
A company develops an AI system, and thousands or millions of people can use it. Some pay subscriptions, while developers can pay to connect their own applications to the system through APIs.
The individual payment may be small. At scale, however, the numbers can become significant.
The same principle applies to AI-generated media. Someone producing a large number of images or videos may pay for credits or computing resources. If thousands of creators are doing the same thing, the technology provider has a sizeable market.
A difficult question for governments
The speed of AI development has also left governments trying to catch up.
Nyanzi is concerned that excessive regulation could slow innovation. He argues that countries competing in artificial intelligence need to be careful about rules that could discourage developers and investors.
But the argument is not simply about regulation versus freedom.
Governments are dealing with difficult questions about privacy, copyright, national security, misinformation, safety and the use of powerful AI systems.
The United States and China are both investing heavily in artificial intelligence while developing their own approaches to governing the technology.
For Nyanzi, the public debate should also include education.
People need to know what AI can do, what it cannot do and how to use it responsibly.
A technology that is already here
The remarkable thing about AI, Nyanzi says, is how quickly it has become ordinary.
A student can use it to understand a difficult subject. A programmer can ask it to assist with code. A business can use it to answer routine customer questions. A creator can produce an image without hiring a photographer or designer for every project.
There are also people using AI simply for entertainment.
The technology is being adopted in different ways because people have different needs.
Nyanzi believes this widespread use should encourage more people, particularly young Africans, to learn how the technology works rather than simply watch its development from the sidelines.
The ownership question
There is another issue behind the rise of technology: who owns the platforms?
Africa has a large population of technology users, but many of the biggest digital services used on the continent were created elsewhere.
Nyanzi wants the next generation to think beyond becoming customers of those services.
He believes African entrepreneurs can build products for local problems and then take them to international markets.
The internet makes that possible in a way that previous generations of entrepreneurs did not have.
A company can begin in Kampala and find a customer in London. A developer can create a service in Nairobi and attract users in New York. A small team can build a product that eventually reaches millions.
There is no guarantee that it will happen. Technology remains a competitive business, and most products will not become global platforms.
But the possibility itself has changed the meaning of entrepreneurship.
For Nyanzi, that is why technology deserves serious attention.
“Everyone should adopt AI,” he said.
His point is not simply that artificial intelligence is fashionable. It is that technology is becoming part of almost every sector of the economy.
The entrepreneurs who learn to build with it—rather than only consume what others have built—could help determine what the next digital economy looks like.
For Africa, that may be the bigger opportunity: not simply joining the technology revolution as users, but having a hand in building what comes next.
The writer is Martin Luther Nyanzi
